Are We Ready For The Workplace Gender Shift?

Last week, Dorothy Dalton shared an intriguing guest piece on my blog which questioned whether management training should take into account the inherent differences between men and women. Not surprisingly, her piece resonated greatly among women readers, who both participated in the follow-up discussion, as well as sharing this piece with others on Twitter. Although on the surface this might seem to be a “women’s issue”, the reality is that gender issues should be viewed as an important topic for those involved in managing an organization’s workforce.

While Dorothy’s piece posed the question of whether such gender-specific measures are needed today, the points she put forth got me thinking about what we should expect in the decades to come based on some issues arising from today’s education system.

A dramatic shift in gender strengths in education

There have been numerous reports over the last couple of years that have shown that girls are excelling in the fields of mathematics and science, areas of knowledge which in the past were dominated by boys both in terms of grades and interest. At first glance, these results seem to indicate that girls are finally catching up with boys in their mastery of these subjects. A closer examination of the situation though, reveals something more problematic at play here.

In order to address the obvious difficulty girls were having with math and science, many education boards took on new approaches and strategies to make these disciplines more attractive or easier for girls to learn by changing how the material was taught. For example, math exercises have moved from solving basic equations to reading and deciphering situational problems, taking advantage of the strengths of elementary-school girls for both reading and comprehension.

By shifting how math is taught, elementary school girls have been able to embrace this discipline, building a foundation of comprehension and burgeoning interest, which has no doubt helped to propel them further in this field as they move up through the education system. However, while this is clearly a success in terms of finally getting girls more interested in these fields of study, recent findings are now starting to show that it’s coming with an unexpected, though I’d say not surprising, consequence.

During this same time span that has seen girls’ grades in these typically-male dominated fields rise dramatically, there’s also been an alarming drop in the grades being earned by boys in these same subjects. Obviously, the big reason behind this worrying decline in the boys’ performance is the fact that boys are now expected to read math lessons rather than focus on doing simple number-crunching exercises. Indeed, talking with my daughter’s Grade 1 teacher a few years ago, she pointed out how she has a harder time getting boys to want to read than girls, many of whom relish the opportunity to try and read the latest book she brings into her class.

The fact that boys would prefer numbers over reading is hardly surprising.  One only needs to think of how many men can prattle off various sports statistics, or recite various schematic details about certain transportation vehicles for proof of that. It’s also why Oprah Winfrey was able to start a very successful book club, given how the majority of her viewers are women.

As the drop-out rate in high school for boys continues to grow each year, many school boards are now trying to figure out ways to stop this disturbing trend, with a few school boards now suggesting a rather surprising solution to fix this problem.

School segregation about to make a come-back?

One of the ideas now being floated to address this decline is to create segregated classes along gender lines, the argument being that boys can’t perform well in school if they see girls doing better in areas that are still viewed as being the preferred subjects for boys. But what kind of message would we be sending to our children with such an approach – that the only way boys should be expected to succeed is either by holding girls back or keeping the sexes apart? I also can’t help but wonder how such measures will impact the ability for these boys and girls to effectively collaborate and work together once they join the workforce, given how we’re now teaching them that the only way they can succeed is by working apart.

Of course, as anyone who works in the education field knows, any fundamental changes to the education system will take at least a decade both for complete implementation, as well as for the actual impact to be seen. By that time, most of the boys and girls currently in our education system will be preparing themselves to enter our workforce. If we think there’s difficulties now in how genders interact or are trained in the workplace today, I wonder what the situation will be like 10-20 years from now.

So where do we go from here?

There’s no question that changes are on the horizon for the way we do business, not simply as a result of “the Great Recession”, but also as a response to the shift in demographics in the workplace as a result of more women taking on positions in organizations throughout the world. While some companies are currently working to implement changes to their business approach, I wonder how many are also including in those plans measures to address this eventuality.

Thanks to the efforts made by most education systems, we can now appreciate that any gender-specific changes which fail to take into account the impact on the other gender can lead to adverse consequences that decision-makers may have failed to anticipate. As such, perhaps one place to start is for educators and business leaders to recognize the critical role our gender plays both in how we communicate and how we learn, in order to ensure that we create learning and working environments that are beneficial for both boys and girls, as well as men and women.

Outside of that, the only thing that can be said with any certainty about this situation is that it leaves us with few, if any easy answers.